Re: Changes in pronunciation before 'l' in English

From: Joseph W. Murphy (jwmurphy700_at_mindspring.com)
Date: 07/28/04 

Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 15:00:25 GMT

"Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

>Jim Heckman wrote:
>>
>> On 27-Jul-2004, Greg Lee <greg@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
>> wrote in message <ce7c3e$pjv$1@news.hawaii.edu>:
>>
>> > Mxsmanic <mxsmanic@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Something changes in the pronunciation of vowels before 'l' in works
>> > > like walk, talk, etc., or at least that's my impression. What change
>> > > occurs, and how do I transcribe it? "Walk" seems to rhyme almost with
>> > > "wok," except for the timbre of the vowel (that is, I don't really hear
>> > > an 'l' sound in it). Does the 'l' color the vowel without being
>> > > pronounced itself, or what?
>> >
>> > According to descriptions I've seen, 'l' after the vowel of a syllable
>> > is velarized. [...]
>>
>> ?? Does anyone actually have /l/ in <walk> or <talk>? RP has
>> [wO:k] and [tO:k], which give, regularly, [wA.k] and [tA.k] for
>> me, whose accent is close to Mxmanic's, judging by his previous
>> posts. My <walk> [wA.k] is close to merging with my <wok> [wAk];
>> my cot/caught distinction is marginal.
>
>No [l] in "folk" or "yolk," ambivalent about "Polk."
>--
>Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net

Odd. I use (and usually hear) a slight "l" in "folk" but not in
"yolk". Sometimes anyway. When I hear "folk music" I generally hear
an "l". But when I hear "Listen folks..." I sometimes hear the "l"
pronounced and sometimes not. Depends on the speaker I guess.

"President Polk" or "beer-barrel polka" all have the "l" there for me.
I distinguish "Polk" from "poke".

Joe Murphy
Boy Linguist

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